18ft Skiff Club Championship Race 3 and SIXT Spring Championship Race 6

18ft Skiff Club Championship Race 3 and SIXT Spring Championship Race 6

by Frank Quealey 16 Nov 00:26 PST
16 November 2025

Yandoo Trophy

Today’s Race Partner: Sixt

Balmain (Henry Larkings, Tom Grimes and Fynn Sprott) won Race 3 of the Australian 18 Footers League’s Club Championship on Sydney Harbour today, but it was Sixt, crewed by Jacob Marks, Alex Marinelli and Matt Doyle which won the 2025 SIXT Spring Championship, and Yandoo Trophy.

The Balmain combined great crew work with excellent tactics in the testing, tricky and light ENE breeze to take the line honours associated with the Club Championship by 58s from the young rookie Rag & Famish Hotel crew of Ben Crafoord, Ryan Ewings and Max Nearn, with Smeg (Ash Rooklyn, Niall Morrow and Finn Rodowicz a further 23s back in third place.

Major event of the day’s racing, however, was Race 6 (the last race) of the SIXT Spring Championship, a handicap held in conjunction with the scratch race.

While Smeg won Race 6 from Fisher & Paykel (Brett Van Munster, Tom Quigley and Logan Radford), the overall Spring Championship victory, and $6,000 prizemoney, went to the Sixt team which finished on 22 points after finishing in 7th place today.

Runner-up, and winner of $1,200 prizemoney, went to Club Marine (Emma Rankin, Jed Cruikshank and Brandon Buyink) on 26 points, while third place, and prizemoney of $600, was won by Rag & Famish Hotel on 32 points.

Fisher & Paykel finished fourth on 33 points, followed by Balmain on 35 and Yandoo on 37.

Following today’s Balmain victory in the Club Championship race, Lazarus Capital Partners (Tom Cunich, Marc Chapon and Tim Westwood) leads the overall pointscore with a total of 10 points, resulting from one 2nd placing and two 4ths from the three races sailed so far. Yandoo (Tom Needham, Fang Warren and Pete Nicholson) couldn’t recover from a poor first work to the Beashel Buoy and finished only 11th today, but is still in second place on 13 points following wins in each of the first two races of the championship.

Sixt is in third place on 14 points, followed by Rag & Famish Hotel on 18, Bamain on 21. Fisher & Paykel and Club Marine are next, equal on 24 points.

After a number of strong winds early in the season have created problems for some of the new and young teams, today’s better sailing conditions allowed those teams to show their potential and it was a good lead up for them to the NSW Championship which begins next Sunday with Races 1 and 2 being conducted by the Australian 18 Footers League on Sydney Harbour.

The light, flukey conditions at the start played havoc with the fleet which split into two groups, on each side of the course, soon after the start.

Both Rag & Famish Hotel and Sotheby’s Ballard Property (Bec Hancock) held leads on the LHS of the course before Shaw and Partners Financial Services (John Harris) grabbed the lead from Balmain when the two groups finally met off Steel Point.

At the weather mark, Shaw and Partners held a 30s lead over Balmain, followed by Smeg, Club Marine, Lazarus and Sotheby’s Ballard Property, but a spinnaker problem on the leader proved costly, then near fatal on the run from the Beashel Buoy to the wing mark off the southern end of Shark Island.

The problem was the result of the wrong spinnaker being taken to the start area which had to be hurriedly replaced with the bigger #1 spinnaker.

With the new Shaw and Partners relegated back to fourth place, Balmain’s crew quickly established a one minute break over their nearest rival, Smeg, at the end of the first lap and despite relentless challenges by Smeg and The Rag over the following two laps of the long NE course, Balmain’s victory was never in doubt before crossing the finish line a 58s winner.

Races 1 and 2 of the NSW Championship will be sailed next Sunday (23 November). Races 4 and 5 of the Club Championship will be sailed in conjunction with the NSW Championship races. The spectator ferry will leave Double Bay Public Wharf at 2pm and SaailMedia with livestream the racing.

SIXT Spring Championship Overall Results:

Club Championship Results after Race 3: